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U.S. Stands Alone on Sudan - Paper
KHARTOUM, Sudan (IslamOnline) - A U.S. newspapers said Sunday that the U.S. stood alone in opposing the government of Sudan as its European allies moved closer to engagement with the Khartoum government.
The Boston globe said in a feature Sunday that the owner of El-Shifa factory was suing the U.S. for 1998 bombing of his plant.
President Clinton, who ordered the attack, claimed the factory was a secret chemical weapons facility; Sudan said it manufactured life-saving medicines," the newspaper said.
Now the owner is bringing a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the U.S. government and, to prove his point, allows anyone who wishes to look around.
''We respect America, but she did something bad for us here,'' said Abdul el-Munign, a young man who guides the curious through the rubble.
This stark skeleton of El Shifa is also a symbol of the persistent enmity between the United States and Sudan's Islamic regime. For the United States, Sudan is a pariah state in the same league as Iraq, North Korea, and Afghanistan. American companies are prohibited from doing business here, the U.S. Embassy is officially closed, and the State Department still considers Khartoum to be a "terrorist" safe haven.
But recently other nations, particularly in Europe, have started to reject America's policy of isolating Sudan. Since last year, Britain, France, the Netherlands, and other European Union countries have undertaken a policy of ''constructive engagement'' with President Omar el-Bashir's government, the paper said.
That has meant renewed contacts with government officials, funding for a program to combat what Western countries insist is a slave trade, and turning a blind eye to United Nations sanctions imposed in 1996.
The move has sparked a quiet but heated war of words in the air-conditioned cool of Western diplomatic circles here.
''The Americans often give the impression that all they want to do is overthrow the government,'' grumbled one senior European diplomat.
American officials retort that Europe is turning a blind eye to official opposition of U.S. polices in the name of pragmatic politics.
One prickly question lies at the heart of the debate: whether one of the world's so called most notorious ''rogue'' regimes is capable of reforming itself from within.
Osama Bin Laden, the Islamic Saudi dissident suspected of masterminding the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in east Africa, used to reside here.
In Washington, an eclectic coalition of conservative Christians and black rights activists have turned Sudan into a political hot potato. The most influential campaigner is the Rev. Franklin Graham, the head of the evangelical charity Samaritan's Purse and a confidant of President Bush, who has advocated further military strikes against the Khartoum government, which he describes as ''pure evil,'' mainly because of its advocacy of an Islamic agenda.
That description infuriates Sudan's government.
''We are mistreated more than any other country in the world,'' said Mahdi Ibrahim, a presidential adviser recently appointed minister of information. Ibrahim also objected to frequent portrayal of the civil war as a religious one that pits northern Muslims against southern Christians.
''Two million southerners are living in Khartoum. Why would they come if we were persecuting them?'' he asked.
Islamic sharia law has been in force in northern Sudan since 1983 but is loosely enforced these days. A small number of women refuse to wear the veil in public, and alcohol is tolerated in private homes. The number of judicial amputations of convicted criminals has also fallen, the paper said.
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